JAY AMBROSE: Auto bailout has us drowning in debt

Hoping to find at least one thing Barack Obama did right in his first several years as president, supporters say this lifeguard jumped in the water and saved General Motors and Chrysler from drowning.

They don't mention that another lifeguard got shoved aside, that the victims are not on shore yet —or that Obama tied anchors to their feet.

Though it's nowhere near a certainty, normal bankruptcy procedures might have rescued these companies already plagued by too much government, chiefly in the form of those misdirected rules about fuel efficiency.

We can reasonably assume, however, that we still would have had an auto industry in the form of other companies if a normal Chapter 11 proceeding had taken precedence over politically advantageous, socialist intervention. And this way out would not then have perverted long-standing legal rights while unconstitutionally picking the pockets of the citizenry.

In its takeover — the government still owns more than a quarter of General Motors and is still owed billions — the Obama team stole from tacky, old bondholders and others to give to one of the industry's foremost malefactors, the United Auto Workers.

Unions are buddies of Democrats, the source of votes galore, campaign contributions galore, so if Congress won't go along with a deal that helps keep them in clover, forget Congress.

Forget what the Troubled Asset Relief Program says about who can get what and just go ahead and give $60 billion to the auto industry. You will get away with it. President George W. Bush already had forked over $20 billion, and the Supreme Court never was going to intervene in any of this.

GM was able to announce record profits, and that's great: Long live GM, and don't anyone mention the tsunami that set back its Japanese competition.

Someone might mention that what the government gives, it can take away. As a Wall Street Journal editorial explains in making the whole situation splendidly clear, GM happily has agreed to go along with more demanding fuel efficiency standards, meaning it is going to make fewer of the pickups and SUVs its customers want.

There is no better example of this stupidity than the GM flop known as the Chevy Volt, a $40,000 electric-and-gas car that had a dangerous battery. Everyone and his cousin has shied away from purchasing it, despite government incentives. GM has a solution: higher federal taxes at the gas pump.

The glory that is Detroit won't necessarily remain glorious for long. The government helped get the industry in trouble in the first place.

Shed those anchors, GM. Do what your business sense directs you to do, understanding that Big Brother is himself drowning in debt.